CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

“Where have you been?” Titus snapped as Kerr staggered into the room. “The sun rose an hour ago!”

“Sorry, boss,” Kerr muttered, and dragged his fingers through the tangle of his hair. “I’ll go and get some breakfast.”

“Wait a minute,” the wizard said reluctantly. “Where have you been all night?”

“I was caught in the curfew.”

“Caught in the…” Titus sputtered to a halt. “What about the phantoms?”

Kerr looked at him, his eyes bright above the grey hollows.

“You knew about them?”

“Of course, everybody knows about them. The streets of Praag are built from hungry stones. They try to hold on to the spirits of the dead when it’s their time to leave. Why do you think everybody is cremated outside the city?”

Kerr sat down.

“I didn’t know. I do now, though. They were horrible.”

Titus’ concern evaporated beneath the heat of his curiosity.

“Horrible? Could you see them? Opinions vary. Some say that seeing the phantoms is the mark of a wizard, although others say not. Last year, one of our order even travelled here to find out once and for all. We never did find out what happened to him.”

If Kerr felt offended by his master’s callous indifference, he gave no sign of it. He was too tired.

“Well?” Titus prompted as his eyelids began to droop. “Did you see them?”

“They were mostly just voices. They shrieked and cried, and one of them even talked to me.”

“Aha! A Stahlwerden. They’re very dangerous. You’re lucky to have made it back.”

Kerr nodded.

“I have this to thank.” He unclenched his fist to reveal the stone. It was greasy with sweat, and his palm was pink from grasping it. “I was holding it when I hit the… What did you call it?”

“The Stahlwerden,” Titus said.

“Yes, that’s it, but when I hit it with this in my hand there was an explosion of light and it went. I think I killed it.”

“Can’t have done,” Titus told him, waddling over to take the stone from his apprentice’s hand. “It was already dead, and anyway, this rock has no power. It’s just a thing to practise on, like the knitting.”

The wizard weighed the stone in his own podgy hand before returning it to Kerr.

“It worked, though,” Kerr said. “I hit the… the ghost and it exploded.”

Titus looked at him, eyes as expressionless as glass.

“As you say,” he decided at length, “and then what happened?”

“I got lost. I couldn’t find my way back until daybreak.”

“Fascinating,” Titus said, and wandered over to the diamond paned window, “but we have more important things to worry about.”

“Yes,” said Kerr pulling himself to his feet. “I could smell breakfast cooking as I came in.”

“I meant finding our target,” Titus sniffed. “Although, as you mention it, some sustenance might be a good idea; but as soon as we’ve eaten it’s straight back to work. That idiot Grendel’s a lot more slippery than I thought he’d be. He must be eschewing the use of our craft in order to remain hidden. I wouldn’t have thought that he would have the wits.”

 

Tongues of purple fire flickered around Grendel’s body as he worked. He didn’t seem to notice the flames, even those that developed lascivious faces before fading.

Sweat poured off him, dripping from his sharp nose onto the ingredients before him. He didn’t think that it mattered. The concoction that he had dreamt of the night before was a robust enough combination. A few impurities wouldn’t make any difference to it, and even if they did, what of it? His master wouldn’t mind.

Grendel giggled at the thought, and started to grind some fragments of bone in a pestle and mortar.

He really wasn’t sure what the potion was going to do. In the nightmare… no, in the dream… he had seen the beginnings of something wonderful: something that would make Zhukovsky’s coven worthy of the attention of Slaanesh himself.

Grendel swatted at a flash of violet light that shimmered in front of his eyes. It had assumed an obscene form, but the sorcerer had no time for such distractions. Now, he was creating.

He blinked sweat out of his eyes and pressed a fingertip into the powdered bone. Deciding that it was fine enough, he poured it into a vase of finest Cathayan porcelain. Then he turned back to rummage around through his supplies. Although he had no idea what he was looking for, his bony fingers rustled through the merchandise as confidently as rats through a barn.

“Aha!” he said, lifting a bundle of feathers clear. They were long and luxuriant, and shot through with iridescent colours.

Grendel lit a candle, and then held the feathers over the pot and burned them. The acrid smell of burning filled the room, and Grendel giggled again.

Had magic ever been so much fun? He didn’t think so. It had been all reading and study, and endless rules and restrictions; not at all like this freedom.

Not at all like this power.

He paused for a moment and gazed rapturously into space. In a couple of days, the coven would assemble, and then what a work of art he would make of them. What a masterpiece! And all to the greater glory of Slaanesh, greatest of all the gods.

Tears of joy slid unnoticed into his beard, and he started work again.

“Toadstools,” he muttered as he searched amongst the detritus that filled the room. “Toadstools, toadstools, toadstools.”

Behind him, a snap of green lightning arced from one wall to another. A rind of fungus sprouted from the area where it struck. Grendel took no notice of it as he rummaged around.

“Aha, here it is,” he said and, his scrawny form glowing with energy, he continued with his preparations.

 

Kerr had barely finished clearing Titus’ breakfast things away when the first of his informants appeared at the inn. It was the boy who had tried to pick his pocket, and this time he was not alone. Half a dozen other lads stood behind him, huddled in one corner of the inn’s small yard.

They stared at Kerr with a frank interest as their leader spoke.

“I reckon we’ve found your man, your lordship,” he said. Aware of his audience, he stood tall. With thumbs hooked around the strings that served him as braces, and with his chin held high, he looked like a miniature version of the innkeeper himself.

“Found our man, have you?” Kerr asked, returning the level gaze.

“Southlander you said, sir with a funny accent like your own. Sort of whiny like.”

Kerr bit back the retort that sprang to mind, and nodded.

“I’ve seen him with my own eyes.”

“You might have seen him,” Kerr allowed, “but what exactly was this fellow like?”

“Big, just like you said. Wide across the chest and with arms like hams. He had a beard just like you said, too, and a wild look about him. Is he a murderer or something?”

Kerr frowned.

“No, not really. That doesn’t sound like him either.”

The informant’s face fell, and his shoulders slumped.

“You ain’t just saying that? I mean, I can tell you where this fellow is. You won’t find him without us.”

“Sorry,” Kerr said, and he meant it. He hadn’t been long enough out of the gutter to forget what it was like. “Our boy isn’t big anywhere, apart from straight up.”

One of the other urchins tugged at his leader’s arm and whispered something into his ear.

“We know of some other southlanders,” the representative said, turning back to Kerr. “They’re smaller, but they aren’t much. They barely have enough coin for their inn.”

Kerr frowned.

“How many of them are there?”

Another muffled conversation ensued.

“About six.”

Again, Kerr shook his head.

“No, not them then, the fellow we’re after is alone.”

There was another huddle, but their optimism was waning. Even their leader had lost his confidence.

“The only other one we know of is some sort of aristo,” he frowned. “Lanky he is, and crazy.”

“Oh?” Kerr licked his lips and tried not to look too enthusiastic.

“That’s right. Ert here saw him going into… Well, going into a certain building.”

“Which one is Ert?” Kerr asked, looking at the huddle of children before him. There seemed to be even more of them now than there had been a moment before, and not a one above ten years old.

“This is Ert,” their leader said, and pushed one of their number reluctantly forwards. Although he couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, he had the biggest and the grimiest ears that Kerr had ever seen.

“Well then Ert,” he said, kneeling down so that they were on eye level, “tell us about this man you’ve seen.”

Ert swallowed and looked at his friends for reassurance. They encouraged him with a flurry of pinches and prods.

“Tall,” he blurted out, “very tall. He had a beard too, and fine clothes, but dirty.”

Kerr nodded encouragement.

“Anything else?”

“Not really. Only he was with Count Zhukovsky.”

The name was drowned out by a chorus of disapproving voices, and his friends pulled him back into their midst.

“Of course,” their leader hurriedly took over the talking again. “Ert don’t know where he saw your man, or when. Or even which aristo he was with exactly.”

“Oh, it was definitely Zhukovsky,” Ert volunteered before hands wrapped around his mouth.

Kerr grinned.

“Don’t worry,” he told them, “if the information is good I’ll pay you, but I need Ert here to tell me everything about this man, and I want to know about this Zhukovsky too.”

The urchins’ leader beamed.

“Fair enough, your honour,” he said, “and it won’t cost you much extra, but how about something up front? Ert thinks better when he’s got a full belly.”

“That’s all right,” Ert said, “I remember well enough. It was—”

Howls of protest drowned out the rest of the sentence. They only stopped when Kerr produced a coin from his pocket.

“Look, I know how it is. We’ll call this a down payment, and if it does turn out to be our man, then there’s a dozen more behind it.”

He spun the coin in the air, and then threw it to Ert. The boy caught it, took one, disbelieving glance at it, and then closed his fist around the metal.

“Well go on then,” one of his mates urged, “tell the gentleman. Where did you see his friend?”

“Going into the palace. The White Palace. I don’t go near it usually. You know what happens around there, but some of Borscht’s lot were after me and I had to shake them off. Anyway, I was hiding in a water barrel when a carriage draws up and this man gets out. Horrible, he was, looked like a corpse.”

“How do you mean?” Kerr prompted.

“All bony, like, and sunken eyed. Looked like he was dead already, but walking in spite of it.”

Any doubts Kerr might have had vanished. If ever he had heard a necromancer described, then this was it.

“Who did you say he was with?”

Ert looked around nervously, and then leaned forward. He cupped his hands around his mouth and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

“Zhukovsky,” he said, and looked over his shoulder. “Count Zhukovsky.”

“You don’t need to say it twice,” one of his friends scolded, and a murmur of agreement ran through the little huddle. Their joy in the prospect of full bellies had been replaced by a sense of dread.

Kerr lowered his voice in sympathy.

“So what’s up with this Count Zhukovsky?”

Ert looked at his friends, who looked at their feet and shuffled. Even their leader seemed to have lost his voice.

“Come on Ert,” Kerr soothed. “He can’t be that bad.”

Ert, perhaps realising that nobody else was likely to answer, grimaced and spoke up.

“That’s Zhukovsky,” he whispered, leaning forwards, “he eats people.”

Kerr would have laughed if not for the nods of agreement and furtive glances around.

“That’s what I heard, too,” somebody else offered. “A friend of mine’s brother told me about it. Says if you go into… into Zhukovsky’s kitchens for scraps, you never come out.”

“That’s why his cook always invites us in,” another added, “because he knows we won’t accept.”

“Somebody did go in for some soup a couple of weeks ago,” Ert lied.

“What happened to him?”

“Disappeared.”

The gathering aaaaahed as if they’d seen a particularly good conjuror’s trick.

“So what you’re telling me,” Kerr frowned, “is that the man I’m after has gone into a palace with a cannibal.”

“Not a cannibal,” Ert corrected him, “a count. Anyway, I don’t think he eats grownups.”

“Either way, you’d better show me where this place is,” Kerr decided, “but not all of you. I wouldn’t want to get anybody eaten by attracting too much attention.”

The little crowd shifted, torn between fear and the possibility of a tip. Kerr sighed and reached into his purse.

“Here,” he said. “I only want Ert and your leader to come with me. The rest of you, go and get something to eat.”

He tossed the coin to the nearest lad. He leapt to catch it, and then turned and raced away, his companions chasing after him.

“Reminds me of when I was his age,” Kerr smiled. “Right then, Ert, lead on. Let’s see where this Zhukovsky lives.”

 

Titus was exhausted. His normally florid face was pale, and his brow glistened with sweat. He stank, too. When he had come out of the trance, his robes had been sodden with sweat, and he hadn’t had the energy to change them. Instead, he had just collapsed onto his bed and fallen into an exhausted daze.

The problem, he thought, wasn’t that there wasn’t enough energy for his scrying to be successful. No, the problem was exactly the opposite. There was too much energy. It surged into his wizardry, giving it the raw power of a gale lifting a paper kite.

In the south, he had been content to see anything in the other world, but here, he was overwhelmed with so many images, so many gleaming forms and tar black gaps that he had no idea where to look. The very stones of the city gleamed with magic, and any paths that Grendel may have cut through it had long since been filled.

Trying to find a sorcerer in this environment was like trying to follow the track a fish left as it swam through an ocean.

“Are you clever?” Titus asked, looking up at the ceiling, “or are you lucky? Or are you…” he paused, the thought occurring to him for the first time, “…or are you being protected?”

Now that he thought about this last possibility, he was amazed that he hadn’t considered it before. From the little he knew of Grendel, he hadn’t seemed like a conspiratorial sort of man. He could hardly hold a conversation together, and he almost never dined at table. That was why Titus had always assumed that his misfortune had been no more than an accident, an overambitious experiment that had gone slightly wrong.

After all, that had brought him on this damn fool errand, but suppose, just suppose, he was a cultist.

Titus sat up and pulled himself to his feet. He waddled over to the window and peered out at the city beyond. It was a bright afternoon, and the ragged geometry of Praag’s architecture was sharpened with light and shadow.

There must be plenty of the damned and the demented lurking amongst such a sea of humanity: some of them twisted by the touch of magic, condemned to spend their lives hiding mutations or skills, others wishing that they had been.

Titus frowned as he considered these last. He had seen some over the years. When he had been younger, he had even hunted a few of them down. They were invariably insane, and almost invariably drawn from the ranks of the bored and the rich.

The bored and the rich.

Titus lifted his gaze from the streets below and looked out across the rooftops. Here and there were palaces, their towers rising above the tangle of lesser dwellings.

If Grendel had been sheltered, Titus decided, then he would be in one of them.

A smile spread across his face, and his beard bristled. He wiped a sleeve across his brow as he went back down to sit on the bed. He would rest, and then he would eat, and finally, he would start looking again; and this time he knew where to start.

He was still congratulating himself on his deductions when there was a rap on the door and Kerr bundled in. He was flushed, although it was excitement rather than fear that shone on his face.

The two men looked at each other and, in a moment of perfect harmony, said:

“I know where he is.”